Archived Posts 2013 - Page 55 of 167 | Acton PowerBlog

As politicians continue their surrogate decision-making in the lives of the underclass, Washington, D.C. city politics remain a laboratory for repeated public policy failures. The Washington, D.C. city council recently approved a measure that would create a living wage for workers in the city who are employed by large retailers. Sometimes, you have to wonder if the city’s leaders have considered the long-term consequences of decisions like this. D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray took about a week to decide whether to veto or sign the Large Retailer Accountability Act, according to the Washington Times. The newspaper explains what the city is up to:

Part of the Gray administration’s five-year plan to boost the number of jobs in the city includes creating a “retail-friendly environment” in the District. But retailers have argued that the bill the mayor is considering unfairly targets certain employers — specifically those without union labor that occupy in excess of 75,000 square feet and whose parent companies gross $1 billion or more.

It would force those retailers to provide pay and benefits worth $12.50 an hour — a so-called “living wage” for workers — but could potentially curtail retail expansion in the District as affected businesses that oppose the law locate elsewhere. The current minimum wage is $8.25 an hour.

The bill applies only to large retailers with stores of 75,000 square feet or larger with annual corporate sales of at least $1 billion. Stores like Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Toys-R-Us, and the like are the targets of this part of the legislation. Walmart has already threatened to dissolve plans to build three stores in D.C. if the law passes. Can you blame them? How can politicians accurately discern how much Walmart should pay a cashier or someone who stocks shelves? How do politicians know how much any single job should be worth at a large retailer?

Fewer economists would defend the tax credit for children, which reformers also sometimes put on the chopping block. Yet it too should be seen not as a break but as another partial corrective to a bias in federal policy — a bias against the investment we call parenting.

In an early morning raid last week, a SWAT team stormed a residence in residence near Darmstadt, Germany. “I looked through a window and saw many people, police, and special agents, all armed,” says Dirk Wunderlich. “They told me they wanted to come in to speak with me. I tried to ask questions, but within seconds, three police officers brought a battering ram and were about to break the door in, so I opened it.”

“The police shoved me into a chair and wouldn’t let me even make a phone call at first,” added Wunderlich. “It was chaotic as they told me they had an order to take the children. At my slightest movement the agents would grab me, as if I were a terrorist. You would never expect anything like this to happen in our calm, peaceful village. It was like a scene out of a science fiction movie. Our neighbors and children have been traumatized by this invasion.”

Social workers forcibly removed four children, aged 7 to 14, from the home and put them in state custody. “When I went outside, our neighbor was crying as she watched,” said Wunderlich. “I turned around to see my daughter being escorted as if she were a criminal by two big policemen. They weren’t being nice at all. When my wife tried to give my daughter a kiss and a hug goodbye, one of the special agents roughly elbowed her out of the way and said—‘It’s too late for that.’ What kind of government acts like this?”

The Wunderlich children were taken away because their parents committed a serious crime in Germany: homeschooling.

Sustained prosperity is new and sustained prosperity for masses of people is completely unprecedented. What is sustained prosperity? It’s three or more generations of people who do not need to focus on survival or live in economic depression, but who can live comfortably even if they live paycheck to paycheck.

The only people who previously enjoyed sustain prosperity were the aristocratic landowners and royals especially of Europe and Asia. After the industrial revolution a few business men and bankers were added to that list but only if their wealth was handed down for more than two generations. No even we do.

Isn’t this the definition of the very rich? Yes, but what is new is that the entire group of people we call the ‘middle class’ has also become comfortable in the four generations since WWII.

How big is the middle class? Even though there are billions who do not enjoy this prosperity, fully 1.80b people are in the global middle class today (and another .15b people are rich). Of that 1.8b there are 18% who live in the U.S., another 36% live in Europe, and 20% are in the BRIC nations.

How did so many join the middle class? It was through the opportunities of new businesses, new inventions, a new high level education for the public, and new skill and knowledge based jobs. These are only possible where there is liberty and governments that allow businesses to prosper.

Why do Africa, the Mid-East, and Latin America have a very small middle class population? Because those regions still retain the old definitions of aristocratic and inherited wealth. That’s the polite way to say it. The reality is more that corrupt governments have plundered their own nations and their own people by corralling the wealth of the land including oil and minerals for themselves.(more…)

In the book, Shlaes makes an explicit connection between Coolidge’s rough-and-humble upbringing in Plymouth Notch, VA, and his bootstraps optimism about commerce and markets. The Coolidges believed that responsibility, hard work, and a virtuous life were bound to pay off, in large part because they experienced it in their own lives.

On this, Robinson offers a wonderful follow-up (around the 31-minute mark), observing that some have connected Lyndon B. Johnson’s similar “hardscrabble upbringing” with an entirely different perspective, namely his “championing of the federal government as an instrument for lifting the poor of the nation.” Why, Robinson asks, did the early struggles of each of these men lead them to entirely different conclusions about economic empowerment and poverty alleviation? (more…)

For Labor Day weekend, Peggy Noonan wrote a column pointing to the critical connection between the spiritual value of work and the moral strength of our culture. But as Greg Forster notes, her “search for a beacon of hope that can point us back toward the dignity of work, she neglects the church in favor of less promising possibilities.”

In her column, she argues that to restore dignity and hope to our culture, we need politicians who celebrate – sincerely, not as a focus-group-tested messaging gimmick – the extraordinary possibilities of work, enterprise, and entrepreneurship to transform our lives and our culture for the better. I think she’s right that politicians who did that would be a positive cultural force. However, turning to politicians as our primary cultural hope is a mistake.

As Willard pointed out, the very fact that we mostly turn to politicians to tell us what the good life is – and to provide it for us – is itself a sign that we’ve turned away from God. We will never get away from catastrophic political conflict as long as people turn mainly to politicians when they seek hope. Government has an important social role to play, of course, and not just in forbidding force and fraud – libertarianism is as much a false hope as socialism. But “the American character” will never recover until we look to pastors as our primary guides and teachers in building a culture (which includes the economic system) that provides hope, dignity, and flourishing.

Noonan herself laments that “the old priests used to say” that “to work is to pray.” Why then does she now look only for politicians to say it? Are there no more pastors? Are today’s pastors incapable of saying it, mired in a truncated vision of their role in our lives, permanently stricken with prophetic laryngitis? Or is it that we no longer believe pastors matter?

Gregg has three competing stories to tell. First he wants to explain how a Catholic can responsibly defend limited government and the free market in accordance with Catholic teaching. This remains a crucial argument to make; since the 1980s, the welfare state has only expanded. As the financial and housing crises of 2008 show, many still look to government to control the economy, and bail out entire industries. Second, he wants to defend the substance of those teachings against both liberal Catholics and other sorts such as libertarians. Catholicism is not capitalism, and its defense of free-market exchanges and limited government is rooted in a certain view of the human person that is not the same as a secular liberal one. The Catholic view promotes human flourishing, but holds that flourishing must be consistent with the natural law and the ends of human life, such as the cultivation of virtue and the common good. Third, he wants to reconcile Catholicism specifically with the American form of republicanism. Gregg argues that the example of Catholics in America shows that the two are compatible, and that indeed the American experiment is consistent with the long tradition of Western liberty inaugurated by the Church.

As the Obama administration considers a strike in response to recent chemical attacks, the head of a global evangelical group said Wednesday (Sept. 4) that Christians in the Middle East oppose military intervention in Syria.

Christians understand that ideas matter, as this understanding applies to our faith and our lives within the body of Christ. That’s why the apostle Paul encouraged the church at Philippi to dwell on that which is pure and right – because what we think about has consequences in the real world.

ArtPrize 2013, September 18-October 6, will be many things. For some, it will be a chance to experience art in a unique way, all over the city of Grand Rapids, for free. For others, it will be a competition: hotly debated and fodder for discussion over the dinner table, at the water cooler and in the media. And for others, it will be a boost for local businesses.

Now in its fifth year, ArtPrize was developed by Grand Rapids native Rick DeVos. He describes the annual event as a “celebration of creativity.” Offering $560,000 in prizes, ArtPrize’s focus is on the public vote. The people who visit, view and critique the art vote, and the artist with the most votes receives $200,000. There is also a juried vote, but ArtPrize is definitely an experience of the people, not experts. In addition, much of the art from the 1500+ participating artists is for sale to the public. (more…)